Pakistan PM orders probe after policeman found dead in Afghanistan

Supporters of the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM) chant slogans against the murder of senior police officer Tahir Dawar, whose body was found in Afghanistan, during a protest in Islamabad, November 15, 2018.
Photograph:(
Reuters
)

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan on Thursday ordered an inquiry into the death of a senior police officer who disappeared from Islamabad last month and whose body was found in Afghanistan.

The body of Tahir Dawar, a superintendent of police in the northwestern city of Peshawar, was recovered on Tuesday in the Afghan province of Nangarhar, nearly three weeks after he went missing.

Khan said he had ordered authorities to carry out "an inquiry immediately".

Pakistan's foreign office said it had twice summoned the Afghan Charge d'Affaires to "seek clarity". Afghan officials were not immediately available for comment.

"His abduction, move to (Afghanistan), murder and follow up behaviour of (Afghan) authorities raise questions which indicate involvement or resources more than a terrorist organisation," military spokesman Major General Asif Ghrafoor said on Twitter.

It was not immediately clear how he knew Dawar had been adducted and murdered.

The governor’s office in Nangarhar said it had delivered the body to tribal elders near the Pakistani border.

Rights activists have questioned how Dawar, who was visiting family in Islamabad from Peshawar on October 26, came to be in Afghanistan.

"The police cannot tell us anything and the entire state is silent about the investigation," parliamentarian Mohsin Dawar (no relation) told Reuters.

Story highlights

The body of Tahir Dawar, a superintendent of police in the northwestern city of Peshawar, was recovered on Tuesday in the Afghan province of Nangarhar, nearly three weeks after he went missing.